The Government of Cambodia’s collaboration with UNICEF on the development of the subnational Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI) for Cambodia marks a significant milestone in adopting a child-sensitive and child-centered approach to climate action. This CCRI builds upon and is adapted from UNICEF’s global Children’s Climate Risk Index framework, incorporating Cambodia-specific components and indicators from its two foundational pillars:
-
Pillar 1 estimates children’s exposure to multiple climate and environmental hazards, shocks, and disasters.
-
Pillar 2 assesses children’s vulnerability to those risks.
Complemented by an interactive dashboard, the CCRI-Cambodia aims to enhance stakeholder engagement at the local level, improve coordination among actors, and support collective action. Specifically, the index serves to:
-
Generate child-centered, multi-hazard risk analyses at the subnational level
-
Foster cross-sectoral coordination and inclusive decision-making across all levels of Cambodia’s administrative system
-
Prioritize the most vulnerable children and communities in emergency preparedness and response
-
Strengthen policy coherence across the climate, environment, and disaster risk sectors, aligning them with the country’s broader development agenda
Through this initiative, the Royal Government of Cambodia is taking concrete steps to fill a critical gap in climate risk assessment. By leveraging UNICEF’s global CCRI model, the subnational CCRI-Cambodia provides a context-specific, data-driven foundation for designing and implementing child-sensitive policies and programs that respond to the realities of climate change and environmental risks in Cambodia.
